Iridescence
by SlipStitch
Summary: Xander is stuck as the demon exterminator of San Francisco with a group of four baby slayers when he finds Ronon Dex and John Sheppard trying to kill a demon. Ronon/Xander slash.
1. Chapter 1

Disclaimer: Standard disclaimers apply, I don't own anything and I'm just playing with them. The baby slayers are mine, though, and even that I'm not sure about.

AN: I'm writing this to get out of my writing rut. I hope to continue with my other stories but it's been dragging out too long and I just had to do something about it. Xander/Ronon slash.

* * *

Xander figured that at 28 he wouldn't be off running across San Francisco in search of a demon that had a tendency to explode when startled. Then again he figured that with the friends he had and living on a Hellmouth that he wouldn't reach to be 28 in the first place. Then again the Hellmouth was destroyed and more Hellmouths conveniently popped up all over the world. Which meant that he was stuck hopping from Hellmouth to Hellmouth killing the baddies and hoping that his baby slayers didn't get killed along with him.

He'd gotten a lot of looks, though, when he had tried to get a room in a motel with one of the baby slayers. It wasn't everyday that an older fellow just decided to go around with an underage girl and not looked creepy while doing so. The girls at Slayer HQ in England had gotten quite the kick when Xander explained the looks he had been receiving and the baby slayers had then tried to look more adult. He ended up looking like an even bigger creeper.

But that had nothing to do with the fact that he was dodging trees in Lincoln Park trying to find this explody demon before it decided to take a chunk out of the trolley riders along with him at the next explosion. Two of the girls were over by Seal Rock trying to figure out exactly where these demons were crawling out of so that they could plug the hole or at least kill enough of them that the demons will stop coming up.

He was dodging through trees and random people when he finally heard the weird chirrup howl that the demons screamed just before charging and exploding. Xander picked up his pace and caught sight of the huge green and brown lumpy thing. It was tall, at least eight feet, and sporting green horns that wouldn't have looked out of place on a bull if not for the iridescent color. Nasty fact about the green horns of the demons was that if they were cut off before the demon exploded they could be used in witchy ingredients and they were also a great source of income because of the weird healing properties they had. One single horn could fetch around a thousand dollar if it was in good condition. The baby slayers were awesome enough to put the whole horns into a box, to be sold later, and the messed up ones sent over to Slayer HQ so that Willow could make potions.

Xander had just about made it near enough to the demon when red lights being shot at the thing distracted him into a stop. He heard a gun shot and flinched back away from the scene, nearly running into a tree in his haste to just get away. The demon roared and stood even taller as it just let the bullets and the weird phaser light thing absorb into its thick hide.

The demon leaned over, presenting its green horns to the two men trying to shoot at it. Xander reacted without thinking and started running. The man with the phaser was still shooting at it and the man with the gun was trying to reload when Xander tackled him to the ground and the demon embedded its horns into a tree trunk, making the entire tree wobble dangerously.

"Shit shit shit! Run!" Xander was already on his feet and pulling on the guy he had slammed on the ground while Phaser Guy shot at its unprotected back. "Get with the running before that thing explodes! It's going to explode!"


	2. Chapter 2

The guy with the gun struggled for a second but then the demon began to glow and the guy just started running like hell was on his ass. Phaser Guy ran past them and the demon exploded behind them all, a gust of scorching hot air pushing them to the ground painfully. Xander could already feel the dirt grinding into his skin and settling into just opened wounds.

"Holy shit," the guy underneath Xander breathed and bucked Xander off of him. "That was unexpected."

Xander snorted and sat on the grass, trying in vain to wipe away dirt and blood from his left cheek. "A day in the life."

"It's still alive," Phaser Guy said as he lumbered over to Xander and leaned slightly on his knees, his dreads spreading forward.

"Yeah. They only go all explody like that when they're in danger or nervous," Xander said and flapped his hand over to the demon that was making keening noises. "They don't even eat people like most other baddies. It's relatively tame."

"That thing just exploded! How is it tame?" the guy next to Xander exclaimed and pointed with his gun rather carelessly.

"Can we ignore the fact that this thing just exploded for a second and talk about the fact that your friend totally has a phaser gun?" Xander interrupted and moved his head out of the way when the guy pointed his gun too close to Xander's face. Xander eyed the fact that the safety was on and didn't react with his initial reaction to break the guy's hand when repressed instincts from a Halloween many years ago surfaced for a tiny second. "I mean, it's not Star Trek or anything. More like a shotgun-phaser. That's kinda cool."

"Sheppard, the horns are growing."

Xander squinted at the demon and yep, the horns were definitely growing again. Xander fumbled for his bag and took out the small axe he'd gotten at Wal-Mart two weeks ago when they were doing a camping sale and he'd wanted to get equipment that was good but his budget was too low to afford otherwise. It was ridiculously useful to have around and after it got blessed a couple of times, cursed and spelled by several witches, and carved with protection sigils. Xander was going to be sad when he'd eventually lose it cutting off some vampire's head, because he is just that unlucky.

"Hey, what are you doing? Get away from that thing," Sheppard yelled as Xander moved closer to the demon.

Xander rolled his eyes and took a swing down to take off one of the horns, it came off cleanly and Xander rejoiced at one more horn that could be used for witchy potions. The second swing wasn't as clean-cut as the first but the horn came off nonetheless. The demon chirrup-howled and Xander had to look away from its pink eyes for a second before he began to hack down at its head until it completely detached from the neck. The head rolled a couple of times on the grass and then began to melt.

"At least these things are conscious enough to clean up after themselves when they die," Xander said and tried to flick demon blood from his axe before it began to eat away at it.

"What exactly was that?" Sheppard asked, his gun was still pointed and this time it was pointing somewhere in the area of Xander's chest.

Xander scratched his head to try and remember the demon's exact name but couldn't for the life of him remember what it was other than coughing and guttural sounds in a demon language. He said the demon name to them and Phaser Guy raised a brow at the sound and kicked casually at the goo slipping into the ground.

"Uh, we just call them explody demons that eat sewer rats and explode when they're in large crowds because they're nervous," Xander shrugged and then put the axe back in his bag as casually as anyone could put an axe into a bag when there was a guy pointing a gun at your chest and another holding a gun from the future. "The girls just call them Bob."

"You know these things?" Phaser Guy asked and pointed at the already gone goo and then over to the fallen tree.

"Who are you guys anyway?" Xander asked and picked up the two horns and put them in his bag. "You're obviously military," Xander pointed to Sheppard. "It's not that obvious because of the non-regulation hair but it's not that hard to see the military in you." He turned to eye Phaser Guy up and down. "You might be military, too, except you have shotgun-phaser and that's throwing me off a little. Are you guys testing experimental military weapons?"

"You cut the head off," Phaser Guy said.

"Yeah," Xander answered slowly and nodded his head. "If the horns grew back it was going to have a bigger explosion and this time it'd probably manage to kill us. I like being alive. Everyone should totally rejoice in being alive and not dead-dead because that doesn't seem all that fun and semi-dead usually comes with the stipulation of eating people and eating people is a no-no no matter where you come from… though, I think it's considered a thing in some places to eat people."

"You knew how to kill it."

"Most things die when you cut their heads off," Xander shrugged and then flapped one hand to the right. "If it doesn't die after you cut off its head then you're probably in over your head and will die a horrible, horrible death, and get eaten; can't forget the getting eaten part."

"You looked like you knew what you were doing," Sheppard commented and then his gun wavered for a second before he pointed just to the side of Xander's neck, or Xander assumed it was since he couldn't tell all that well where the gun was pointed with only one eye and he was pointing towards his eye patch.

"I've done it a time or two," Xander said with a shrug but his hands were already up in a surrendering motion. "These things kept showing up all over the place and I was hired to get rid of them. I'm kind of an exterminator-handyman-carver-chaperone type of guy."  
"Why are these things appearing?" Sheppard asked and his gun didn't even waver.

"Global warming? Political unrest? Mating season? How should I know?"

"Shouldn't you know? You're killing them aren't you?"

"Because they're becoming a danger to people," Xander grumbled with a roll of his eyes. "They appeared in Ghirardelli Square a week ago and had a freak out that managed to send five people to the hospital and two of them won't ever be able to walk again. I was called in to deal with them and I'm doing that."

"Why did you take the horns?"

"They don't turn gooey when they die; they stay behind," Xander shrugged and lowered his arms a little because they were starting to hurt and Sheppard didn't look like he was going to shoot even though his gun was raised. The safety was still firmly on and it was just to scare Xander, it seemed. "I don't like to leave evidence that these things existed if I can help it."

"What are you going to do with the horns?" Sheppard asked and pointed at the bag across Xander's shoulders.

"Grind it to powder or put it in my living room, I don't know," Xander said and just gave up and put his arms down completely. "I'm just trying to do pest control here, buddy. If any more of these things get loose then there will be more people in the hospital which is bad."

"How do you kill these things?" Phaser Guy asked and his arms were crossed rather threateningly. His upper arms were bigger than Xander's head and his hands alone could probably squish Xander's head like a melon.

"Let it explode, let the horns grow back a little and cut them off, and then go straight to cutting the head off," Xander said casually. "They'll try to give you the puppy-dog stare but don't fall for it because by that point the horns are growing again and you'll spend too much time feeling sorry for it and it'll just blow up again and kill you."

"Why not just kill it after it explodes the first time and the horns are re-growing then?"

"Uh, they're still mushy and not yet solid."

"Technical term?"

"Yeah. All the cool kids use it."


	3. Chapter 3

Xander looked towards where he knew his girls were at and gave the two men a little wave.

"So, it was nice meeting you," he grinned as Phaser Guy moved forward as if to stop Xander from going away. "But I have to go make sure that there aren't more of these thing running around trying to explode all over the unsuspecting public. Bye!"

He weaved through a bush and then pelted himself as far away from these military people as possible. If he was lucky, the girls would all be okay and they would have already figured out where the demons were coming from. Seeing as Xander was Unlucky Guy of the Scoobies, the girls were probably bleeding out and opened up the third circle to hell with their baby slayer blood. Most rituals seemed to require slayer blood; Xander has come to figure out after his near twelve years of working with a slayer in some capacity or another that if it doesn't need virgin blood then it more than likely requires slayer blood.

Good thing that San Francisco wasn't a Hellmouth and that they only had to deal with the occasional demon that was relocated from Sunnydale causing havoc all over California. Most of the demons that were relocated weren't even that hostile but sometimes they just needed that little push to not even think about doing bad. Since Faith was stuck in the Cleveland Hellmouth, with her own set of baby slayers and baby witches, she couldn't go out to San Francisco to help out with the demon overflow. Dawn was in Italy dealing with her own demon problems, and going to college, and would on occasion manage to send Xander e-mails about excess demon activity in some part of the country or another.

Xander looked up ahead as the sound of fighting finally reached his ears and he saw that of one of his girls was missing and looked around him for a clue as to where she might be. Callie, the eldest and newest slayer, was on the back of the demon and trying to kick the horns off, her blonde hair waving wildly when the demon tried to displace her from its back. Mel, the resident witch-slash-slayer, was hitting it with what looked like an electrified ax but that wasn't doing much damage to the demon except making it louder.

To the side of the fighting, Patricia looked to be unconscious on the ground and he went over to her, as she was the only one he could help at that moment. There didn't seem to be any outwards signs of injury but that said nothing about any internal bleeding or broken ribs or anything like that. He picked her up and moved her as far away from the fight as he could without bringing attention to what he was doing. The demon chirrup-howled and Xander looked up in time to see Callie finally kick off the left horn, making it shoot out into the air and embed itself into a tree. Mel swung her ax as she jumped up and took out the other horn as Callie threw herself off the demon.

"Hey, Trish," Xander coaxed lightly as he tapped Patricia's cheeks lightly to try and wake her up, "you need to wake up. I know you don't like hospitals so we should probably avoid those. Trish!"

Only years of quick reflexes and getting hit in the face by things gave Xander enough warning to move back and roll to the side. Patricia's reaction was familiar with most slayers and known solely as 'punch them unconscious and ask questions later' move and it mostly manifested when they had to be woken up in the morning for school.

"Patricia, do you know where Kaya is?" he asked as soon as he was sure that Patricia was awake enough to answer questions. Callie and Mel were already making their way over to them, small grins on their faces. "Do any of you know where Kaya is?"

Mel's entire back tensed and the bun that she had up to keep her hair out of her face unraveled slightly. She looked over to the water and began running towards it. "She's in the water. That thing threw her in the water before Callie managed to get on its back."

Xander rushed after the girls as he thought about whether or not swimming lessons were in the slayer's repertoire of useful fighting knowledge or whether or not there were sharks in these waters.

"Hey, she's fine!" Callie yelled and waved Xander over as she leaned over the railing to the rocks below and offered her hand to Kaya below. Kaya was drenched and she seemed to have a cut on the side of her head. Her dark skin gleamed in the sunglight and her shaved head made the cut and the blood dribbling from it seemed more pronounced than it probably was.

"Are you okay?" Xander asked as he caught up to the girls and eyed the cut. He rummaged in his bag for the bandages he knew he had packed earlier that morning and that was considered essential equipment for everyone to have in their slayer package. "Here, let me disinfect that and we can all go for that ice cream I promised while you tell me what you found out."

"We haven't figured out where they're coming from," Mel said and sighed as she watched Xander tend to Kaya. "We checked every single tunnel we could find and there are no nests or anything like that. They just come out of fricking nowhere, man."

"They smell like the sewers," Callie said helpfully and then her nose wrinkled. "We're going to have to check the sewers aren't we? Why do we always up in the sewers?"

"We're just lucky," Xander said. "Look at the bright side—"

"There is no bright side to this," Kaya said with a huff, her accented voice cutting off Xander quickly. "I think they come from the water."

Mel looked over the railing and stared at the water. "What gave you that idea?"

"They always appear near large bodies of water."

"We'll do some research to see about stopping them from coming up to land so that we don't have them exploding all over San Francisco Bay area," Xander said and stood back from Kaya to give the girl some room to move away from the railing. "Where's your bag?"

"I'll get it," Callie said and turned around to run back where they had come from. She barely took three steps before she stopped and backtracked. "Uh, I think we were watched by some people, Xander."

Xander hissed and stared up at the slight hill. Sheppard and Phaser Guy were at the top of the incline just looking down at them with confused looks on their faces.

"Go get your stuff and then we'll walk over to the car for the ice cream," Xander suggested as they all made their way to the shocked men.

"I call shotgun!" Callie yelled and rushed up the hill and passed the two men. The other three girls yelled up at her about Callie always getting shotgun and raced after her.

"Is there something wrong, gentlemen?" Xander asked with a raised brow.

"Is this a family thing?" Sheppard asked and pointed to the girls bickering behind him. "Are you going to answer our questions about what that thing was and what you were doing fighting it?"

"I already told you: Bob, and if we don't fight them off they'll go into crowds and start killing people," Xander said, his eyes rolling so hard that there was an actual threat of it popping out. "I think that's good enough reason to fight them off, right?"


End file.
